Добавил:
ivanov666
Опубликованный материал нарушает ваши авторские права? Сообщите нам.
Вуз:
Предмет:
Файл:In the South Seas
.pdf
IN THE SOUTH SEAS
islao is High Chiefess of the southern island of Tauata. These,
then, are the greatest folk of the archipelago; we thought them
also the most estimable. This is the rule in Polynesia, with few
exceptions; the higher the family, the better the man – better in sense, better in manners, and usually taller and stronger in
body. A stranger advances blindfold. He scrapes acquaintance
as he can. Save the tattoo in the Marquesas, nothing indicates
the difference of rank; and yet almost invariably we found, after we had made them, that our friends were persons of station.
I have said “usually taller and stronger.” I might have been
more absolute, – over all Polynesia, and a part of Micronesia, the rule holds good; the great ones of the isle, and even of
the village, are greater of bone and muscle, and often heavier of fl esh, than any commoner. The usual explanation – that
the high-born child is more industriously shampooed, is probably the true one. In New Caledonia, at least, where the difference does not exist, has never been remarked, the practice of
shampooing seems to be itself unknown. Doctors would be
well employed in a study of the point.
Vaekehu lives at the other end of the town from the Residency, beyond the buildings of the mission. Her house is on
the European plan: a table in the midst of the chief room; photographs and religious pictures on the wall. It commands to
either hand a charming vista: through the front door, a peep of
green lawn, scurrying pigs, the pendent fans of the coco-palm
and splendour of the bursting surf: through the back, mounting forest glades and coronals of precipice. Here, in the strong
thorough-draught, Her Majesty received us in a simple
gown of print, and with no mark of royalty but the exquisite
81
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
fi nish of her tattooed mittens, the elaboration of her manners,
and the gentle falsetto in which all the highly refi ned among
Marquesan ladies (and Vaekehu above all others) delight to
sing their language. An adopted daughter interpreted, while
we gave the news, and rehearsed by name our friends of Anaho. As we talked, we could see, through the landward door,
another lady of the household at her toilet under the green
trees; who presently, when her hair was arranged, and her hat
wreathed with fl owers, appeared upon the back verandah with
gracious salutations.
Vaekehu is very deaf; “merci” is her only word of French;
and I do not know that she seemed clever. An exquisite, kind
refi nement, with a shade of quietism, gathered perhaps from
the nuns, was what chiefl y struck us. Or rather, upon that fi rst
occasion, we were conscious of a sense as of district-visiting on
our part, and reduced evangelical gentility on the part of our
hostess. The other impression followed after she was more at
ease, and came with Stanislao and his little girl to dine on board
the Casco. She had dressed for the occasion: wore white, which
very well became her strong brown face; and sat among us,
eating or smoking her cigarette, quite cut off from all society,
or only now and then included through the intermediary of
her son. It was a position that might have been ridiculous, and
she made it ornamental; making believe to hear and to be entertained; her face, whenever she met our eyes, lighting with
the smile of good society; her contributions to the talk, when
she made any, and that was seldom, always complimentary and
pleasing. No attention was paid to the child, for instance, but
what she remarked and thanked us for. Her parting with each,
82
IN THE SOUTH SEAS
when she came to leave, was gracious and pretty, as had been
every step of her behaviour. When Mrs. Stevenson held out
her hand to say good-bye, Vaekehu took it, held it, and a moment smiled upon her; dropped it, and then, as upon a kindly
after-thought, and with a sort of warmth of condescension,
held out both hands and kissed my wife upon both cheeks.
Given the same relation of years and of rank, the thing would
have been so done on the boards of the Comédie Française;
just so might Madame Brohan have warmed and condescended to Madame Broisat in the Marquis de Villemer. It was my
part to accompany our guests ashore: when I kissed the little
girl good-bye at the pier steps, Vaekehu gave a cry of gratifi cation, reached down her hand into the boat, took mine, and
pressed it with that fl attering softness which seems the coquetry of the old lady in every quarter of the earth. The next
moment she had taken Stanislao’s arm, and they moved off
along the pier in the moonlight, leaving me bewildered. This
was a queen of cannibals; she was tattooed from hand to foot,
and perhaps the greatest masterpiece of that art now extant, so
that a while ago, before she was grown prim, her leg was one of
the sights of Tai-o-hae; she had been passed from chief to chief;
she had been fought for and taken in war; perhaps, being so
great a lady, she had sat on the high place, and throned it
there, alone of her sex, while the drums were going twenty
strong and the priests carried up the blood-stained baskets of
long-pig. And now behold her, out of that past of violence and
sickening feasts, step forth, in her age, a quiet, smooth, elaborate old lady, such as you might fi nd at home (mittened also,
but not often so well-mannered) in a score of country hous-
83
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
es. Only Vaekehu’s mittens were of dye, not of silk; and they
had been paid for, not in money, but the cooked fl esh of men.
It came in my mind with a clap, what she could think of it herself, and whether at heart, perhaps, she might not regret and
aspire after the barbarous and stirring past. But when I asked
Stanislao – ‘Ah!” said he, “she is content; she is religious, she
passes all her days with the sisters.”
Stanislao (Stanislaos, with the fi nal consonant evaded after
the Polynesian habit) was sent by Bishop Dordillon to South
America, and there educated by the fathers. His French is fl uent, his talk sensible and spirited, and in his capacity of gangerin-chief, he is of excellent service to the French. With the prestige of his name and family, and with the stick when needful,
he keeps the natives working and the roads passable. Without Stanislao and the convicts, I am in doubt what would become of the present regimen in Nuka-hiva; whether the highways might not be suffered to close up, the pier to wash away,
and the Residency to fall piecemeal about the ears of impotent
offi cials. And yet though the hereditary favourer, and one of
the chief props of French authority, he has always an eye upon
the past. He showed me where the old public place had stood,
still to be traced by random piles of stone; told me how great
and fi ne it was, and surrounded on all sides by populous houses, whence, at the beating of the drums, the folk crowded to
make holiday. The drum-beat of the Polynesian has a strange
and gloomy stimulation for the nerves of all. White persons
feel it – at these precipitate sounds their hearts beat faster;
and, according to old residents, its effect on the natives was
extreme. Bishop Dordillon might entreat; Temoana himself
84
IN THE SOUTH SEAS
command and threaten; at the note of the drum wild instincts
triumphed. And now it might beat upon these ruins, and who
should assemble? The houses are down, the people dead, their
lineage extinct; and the sweepings and fugitives of distant bays
and islands encamp upon their graves. The decline of the dance
Stanislao especially laments. “Chaque pays a ses coutumes,”
said he; but in the report of any gendarme, perhaps corruptly
eager to increase the number of délits and the instruments of
his own power, custom after custom is placed on the expurgatorial index. “Tenez, une danse qui n’est pas permise,” said Stan-
islao: “je ne sais pas pourquoi, elle est très jolie, elle va comme
ça,” and sticking his umbrella upright in the road, he sketched
the steps and gestures. All his criticisms of the present, all
his regrets for the past, struck me as temperate and sensible.
The short term of offi ce of the Resident he thought the chief
defect of the administration; that offi cer having scarce begun to be effi cient ere he was recalled. I thought I gathered,
too, that he regarded with some fear the coming change from
a naval to a civil governor. I am sure at least that I regard it so
myself; for the civil servants of France have never appeared to
any foreigner as at all the fl ower of their country, while her naval offi cers may challenge competition with the world. In all
his talk, Stanislao was particular to speak of his own country
as a land of savages; and when he stated an opinion of his own,
it was with some apologetic preface, alleging that he was “a
savage who had travelled.” There was a deal, in this elaborate
modesty, of honest pride. Yet there was something in the precaution that saddened me; and I could not but fear he was only
forestalling a taunt that he had heard too often.
85
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
I recall with interest two interviews with Stanislao.
The fi rst was a certain afternoon of tropic rain, which we
passed together in the verandah of the club; talking at times
with heightened voices as the showers redoubled overhead,
passing at times into the billiard-room, to consult, in the dim,
cloudy daylight, that map of the world which forms its chief
adornment. He was naturally ignorant of English history, so
that I had much of news to communicate. The story of Gordon I told him in full, and many episodes of the Indian Mutiny, Lucknow, the second battle of Cawn-pore, the relief of
Arrah, the death of poor Spottis-woode, and Sir Hugh Rose’s
hotspur, midland campaign. He was intent to hear; his brown
face, strongly marked with small-pox, kindled and changed
with each vicissitude. His eyes glowed with the refl ected
light of battle; his questions were many and intelligent, and
it was chiefl y these that sent us so often to the map. But it
is of our parting that I keep the strongest sense. We were to
sail on the morrow, and the night had fallen, dark, gusty,
and rainy, when we stumbled up the hill to bid farewell to
Stanislao. He had already loaded us with gifts; but more were
waiting. We sat about the table over cigars and green cocoanuts; claps of wind blew through the house and extinguished
the lamp, which was always instantly relighted with a single
match; and these recurrent intervals of darkness were felt
as a relief. For there was something painful and embarrassing in the kindness of that separation. “Ah, vous devriez rester
ici, mon cher ami!” cried Stanislao. “Vous êtes les gens qu’il faut
pour les Kanaques; vous êtes doux, vous et votre famille; vous
seriez obéis dans toutes les îles.” We had been civil; not always
86
IN THE SOUTH SEAS
that, my conscience told me, and never anything beyond; and
all this to-do is a measure, not of our considerateness, but of
the want of it in others. The rest of the evening, on to Vaekehu’s and back as far as to the pier, Stanislao walked with my
arm and sheltered me with his umbrella; and after the boat
had put off, we could still distinguish, in the murky darkness,
his gestures of farewell. His words, if there were any, were
drowned by the rain and the loud surf.
I have mentioned presents, a vexed question in the South
Seas; and one which well illustrates the common, ignorant
habit of regarding races in a lump. In many quarters the Polynesian gives only to receive. I have visited islands where
the population mobbed me for all the world like dogs after
the waggon of cat’s-meat; and where the frequent proposition, “You my pleni (friend),” or (with more of pathos) “You
all ’e same my father,” must be received with hearty laughter
and a shout. And perhaps everywhere, among the greedy and
rapacious, a gift is regarded as a sprat to catch a whale. It is
the habit to give gifts and to receive returns, and such characters, complying with the custom, will look to it nearly that they
do not lose. But for persons of a different stamp the statement
must be reversed. The shabby Polynesian is anxious till he has
received the return gift; the generous is uneasy until he has
made it. The fi rst is disappointed if you have not given more
than he; the second is miserable if he thinks he has given less
than you. This is my experience; if it clash with that of others,
I pity their fortune, and praise mine: the circumstances cannot change what I have seen, nor lessen what I have received.
And indeed I fi nd that those who oppose me often argue from
87
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
a ground of singular presumptions; comparing Polynesians
with an ideal person, compact of generosity and gratitude,
whom I never had the pleasure of encountering; and forgetting
that what is almost poverty to us is wealth almost unthinkable to them. I will give one instance: I chanced to speak with
consideration of these gifts of Stanislao’s with a certain clever
man, a great hater and contemner of Kanakas. “Well! what
were they?” he cried. “A pack of old men’s beards. Trash!” And
the same gentleman, some half an hour later, being upon a different train of thought, dwelt at length on the esteem in which
the Marquesans held that sort of property, how they preferred
it to all others except land, and what fancy prices it would
fetch. Using his own fi gures, I computed that, in this commodity alone, the gifts of Vaekehu and Stanislao represented between two and three hundred dollars; and the queen’s offi cial
salary is of two hundred and forty in the year.
But generosity on the one hand, and conspicuous meanness on the other, are in the South Seas, as at home, the exception. It is neither with any hope of gain, nor with any lively
wish to please, that the ordinary Polynesian chooses and presents his gifts. A plain social duty lies before him, which he
performs correctly, but without the least enthusiasm. And we
shall best understand his attitude of mind, if we examine our
own to the cognate absurdity of marriage presents. There we
give without any special thought of a return; yet if the circumstance arise, and the return be withheld, we shall judge ourselves insulted. We give them usually without affection, and
almost never with a genuine desire to please; and our gift is
rather a mark of our own status than a measure of our love to
88
IN THE SOUTH SEAS
the recipients. So in a great measure and with the common
run of the Polynesians; their gifts are formal; they imply no
more than social recognition; and they are made and reciprocated, as we pay and return our morning visits. And the practice of marking and measuring events and sentiments by presents is universal in the island world. A gift plays with them
the part of stamp and seal; and has entered profoundly into
the mind of islanders. Peace and war, marriage, adoption and
naturalisation, are celebrated or declared by the acceptance or
the refusal of gifts; and it is as natural for the islander to bring
a gift as for us to carry a card-case.
CHAPTER X
A PORTRAIT AND A STORY
I have had occasion several times to name the late bishop,
Father Dordillon, “Monseigneur,” as he is still almost universally called, Vicar-Apostolic of the Marquesas and Bishop of
Cambysopolis in partibus. Everywhere in the islands, among
all classes and races, this fi ne, old, kindly, cheerful fellow is
remembered with affection and respect. His infl uence with
the natives was paramount. They reckoned him the highest of
men – higher than an admiral; brought him their money to
keep; took his advice upon their purchases; nor would they
plant trees upon their own land till they had the approval of
the father of the islands. During the time of the French exodus he singly represented Europe, living in the Residency, and
ruling by the hand of Temoana. The fi rst roads were made under his auspices and by his persuasion. The old road between
Hatiheu and Anaho was got under way from either side on
the ground that it would be pleasant for an evening promenade, and brought to completion by working on the rivalry of the two villages. The priest would boast in Hatiheu of
the progress made in Anaho, and he would tell the folk of
Anaho, “If you don’t take care, your neighbours will be over
the hill before you are at the top.” It could not be so done to-
90
Соседние файлы в предмете [НЕСОРТИРОВАННОЕ]